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Textbook Lessons in Hope

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Times Staff Writer

Angelica Gutierrez is a teenager with cancer, fighting to survive. She’s also forcing herself to keep up with homework. When Brigid Higgins walks into the room, Angelica struggles to sit up in her hospital bed.

The school day is about to begin.

“Good morning, dear, good morning,” Higgins says, making her way past blinking monitors and tangled IV tubes. The teacher is carrying fat textbooks and notebooks. She wears a green surgical gown and mask, just like the doctors rushing in and out of this isolation ward.

“Tell me about the poem you’ve been reading,” Higgins says to Angelica, a willowy teen in pink pajamas and head-scarf. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

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Before she got sick, the 18-year-old with a dazzling smile had dreamed of becoming an artist or a psychiatrist. She looked forward to graduating from high school in June. She wanted to go to college.

But cancer has its own calendar. Angelica has had two painful bone marrow transplants in the last 18 months. She’s had double pneumonia, a collapsed lung and nerve damage. She’s lost her hair, and suffers nausea from rounds of chemotherapy.

Few would blame her for giving up hope. But Higgins knows her student is stronger than that. She asks if Angelica has made progress on a poetry assignment.

The teen sits up straight. She leans forward and locks eyes with Higgins. Her voice, at first faint, grows louder. In the next minutes, she’s just another student discovering Robert Frost -- and life. She tells Higgins the lessons she’s learned from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

“I’ve found a deeper meaning in the last few lines of the poem: ‘But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep,’ ” Angelica says. “They tell me that I have to keep on fighting to survive. That you don’t die. You go on.”

Higgins, a small, stout woman who usually speaks in a booming Irish brogue, nods silently. She squeezes Angelica’s hand, then gives her a hug.

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“You’re doing so well,” Higgins says. “Really, I’m proud of you.”

When the 20-minute lesson ends, Angelica sinks back wearily onto her pillow, and doctors treating her for non-Hodgkins lymphoma gather around her bed. Higgins promises to return the next day and leaves the room; she peels off her surgical garments and tosses them in a waste bin.

Sadness spreads over her face.

“God willing, Angelica will graduate in June,” Higgins murmurs, making her way down a bustling hospital hallway. “She’s a beautiful girl. And she’s also very sick.”

*

Brigid Higgins is a bedside educator, a New York City schoolteacher who tries to keep gravely ill students focused on learning. At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, where she rushes through the hallways in navy blue suits, colleagues call her Mother Teresa with textbooks.

“I expect hard work from my students,” she says. “But I also give them love.”

When they vomit into a bucket during a math drill, weary from chemotherapy, Higgins holds their hands. When they voice despair, she tells them over and over: “I know you can do it.” She cheers at the graduation ceremonies of those who recover. She grieves at the funerals of those who die.

Higgins is one of five such teachers at Sloan-Kettering, the nation’s largest private hospital devoted to cancer care. Her lessons last several minutes to an hour; she meets with 5 to 6 pupils each day.

“Not every educator can do this work, because the job is filled with heartache,” says Nina Pickett, who runs the Department of Pediatrics at Sloan-Kettering. “And that’s what makes Brigid so special.”

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Higgins has heard every excuse in the book and gets cranky when pupils fail to do the work. But she also understands their anxiety: She had breast cancer 15 years ago. She didn’t like being in the hospital. No one does, she says, and if adults crumble emotionally in the face of death, how can children cope?

“These kids in the hospital are cut off from friends, and at some point they need to talk to someone who isn’t a doctor,” Higgins says. “So here I am, the lady who gives out homework. By the time I come into the room, they’re actually glad to see me.”

Higgins, 69, has done this for 10 years. She plans to retire in June.

When she explains why it’s important to teach terminally ill children, Higgins speaks slowly and with great emotion.

“The reason I keep working with these kids is because children have more hope than anyone,” she says. “They really do believe they’ll get better. Up until the very end, when they can’t hear you speaking to them anymore, they continue to have hope.”

When a child dies, she adds, teachers like her struggle to go on.

“No matter how many times you experience the death of a child, it is impossible to accept,” Higgins says. “When it happens to one of my pupils, I go off somewhere by myself. I need to be alone. But then I get up the next day, and return to the world.”

*

On a chilly Wednesday, Higgins rises at 6:30 a.m. She flips on the TV news, drinks a cup of black coffee and quickly gets dressed. Riding a crowded bus up Manhattan’s East Side, she reaches work at 8:10 a.m.

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“Top of the morning!” an orderly calls out to her. “How are things in Glocca Morra?” yells another.

After a second cup of coffee, Higgins checks into a small office where she scans a list of children in the hospital who are healthy enough to be taught today.

“The trick is to get your best work in early,” Higgins says. “These poor children, they get rounds of medication through the day, and by the early afternoon many of them begin to fade. They want to learn, they’re so eager to see you. And then they fall asleep right in front of you.”

The schooling takes place in a new pediatric wing, where orange, green and blue paintings by young patients fill some of the walls with images of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium and other New York landmarks.

Balloons dangle from the ceiling and colored lights blink from other walls. A spacious playroom is filled with video games, televisions, scooters, books, board games and a jungle gym.

Much of Higgins’ work unfolds in 25 patient rooms beyond the reception area. But sometimes she’ll instruct healthier students -- those able to walk about -- in a small room near the main elevators. It’s designed for teaching, with computers, TVs and desks, and also doubles as a room for doctors’ conferences.

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The students come from all over. Some stay in the hospital for extended periods, while others check in for a day of tests.

As her session with Angelica ends, Higgins reminds herself to bring the Long Island teenager some other poems by Frost. She hurries to the next appointment, turning a corner and almost colliding with an orderly pushing a food cart.

Then she enters Krista Marchese’s room.

The 17-year-old is talking to one friend on a cellphone and telling another, on a second phone, to please hold on. She picks up a portable CD player that has fallen to the floor, shushes her mom when she tries to speak and smiles a big hello.

“Hey, Brigid!” she says proudly. “I walked into the hospital on crutches today!”

“Mercy!” Higgins answers. “There’s no stopping you now!”

Krista, who loves to play soccer and softball, suffered what she thought was a nagging muscle pull two summers ago. But it didn’t heal. Doctors determined it was bone cancer.

Today, Krista’s prospects look good. If she doesn’t have a relapse and keeps up with schoolwork, she could graduate from her high school in the Hamptons next year.

“I couldn’t have gotten through this period without your helping me everyday,” she tells Higgins. “You were tough on me with all the schoolwork, and I needed that.”

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Higgins smiles, then opens a thick blue textbook with multicolored weather maps. She immediately starts asking questions: What are the prevailing climate patterns in northern versus southern Europe? What, exactly, are the differences in weather trends at varying times of the year over the English Channel?

It’s arcane stuff, but it would prove crucial later when Higgins administered three Regents exams -- in geography, biology and English -- to Krista in her hospital room.

The tests, given to all New York students, are required for graduation. For nine hours, teacher and student sat side-by-side on Krista’s bed.

There were essays to write. Multiple choice tests to complete. Krista had difficulty staying focused because she had taken new medications that clouded her mind.

“It was hard, but also heartwarming,” says Kristin Parker, the mother of a patient next door. “At times, Krista was crying. She was physically ill. She couldn’t even stay awake. But Brigid kept encouraging her, and helped her get through it.”

Weeks later, Krista learned she had passed all three exams.

“I’m going to your graduation, Krista, as sure as you’re born,” Higgins says, snapping the textbooks shut. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

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Once again, Higgins makes her way through hallways crowded with doctors, nurses, patients and visitors. Her mood brightens when she steps into the teaching room and greets Timothy Lynch.

A lanky 16-year-old, Lynch got good news recently from doctors. After months of needles, biopsies and chemotherapy, the New Jersey student learned he was going to recover from lymphoma.

He’s at the hospital today for tests -- and a poetry lesson.

“Mr. Lynch, we don’t wear hats in school,” Higgins says, with mock seriousness. The boy sheepishly takes off his baseball cap and sits down at a small wooden table.

Higgins reads aloud to him from “Chamber Music,” a James Joyce poem.

“It’s as if Joyce is describing a nightmare, with feelings of loss,” she says. “Did you ever have a nightmare, Timothy? What did you think when you woke up?”

“I wondered why such a bad thing happened to me,” the boy says.

“How do you feel when somebody abandons you, someone you love?”

“You feel depressed and angry,” Timothy says. “You feel forgotten.”

“If you wrote a poem about all you’ve gone through, what would you say?”

“I’d write about kindness, friendship and thankfulness,” he answers.

“Good boy,” Higgins says. “I think you understand the poem.”

Higgins is upbeat after the lesson with Timothy, and banters with several orderlies about her retirement. Over the next few hours, she meets with Ashley Graziano, Eileen Brazil and Danielle Massetti, and talks about their progress in school. Then it’s time for lunch -- a merciful pause in the workday.

Turning yet another corner, Higgins suddenly stops. She sees a former student and his mother, moving slowly down a corridor. The pencil-thin boy has a haunted look.

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He spots Higgins and smiles, but has barely enough strength to give her a hug. Then, walking with difficulty through the hall, he and his mom disappear behind elevator doors.

“My God,” Higgins says, almost in a whisper. “He doesn’t have very long. And you can see in his eyes that he knows it. All you can do is hug him, and be there for him.”

*

Higgins and the other teachers gather for lunch in a small waiting room, white paper plates with chicken salad sandwiches balanced on their laps.

The talk at first is about schooling; then it turns to their pupils.

Anne Marie Cicciu, who teaches the youngest kids, recalls her session with a 5-year-old the day before. He is dying of cancer and is in extreme pain, she says. But he smiled when he saw her, and held out his hand.

“This child is in distress, and any movement, even in the sheets, can cause him pain,” Cicciu says. “I didn’t want to hurt him, so I leaned over the pillow and just brushed his cheek with mine. I told him he was a special child and always would be.”

They talk of Francine Green, another teacher, who had bought a birthday present for one of her students. He had died the previous night, and her colleagues gently broke the news to her in the cafeteria before she was to visit him.

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Teachers cope in their own ways, Higgins says. Some try to remain brave and stoic through each death. Others fall apart. Higgins says she does most of her grieving as children are dying, sitting by their beds and holding their hands.

“You see their pain and it makes you realize how small our so-called troubles are,” she says. “It’s a lesson that I’ve been learning and re-learning my entire life.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Higgins records entries in a notebook about the students’ progress. She calls to update their teachers back home.

There are 88 instructors in New York City’s bedside program, deployed in hospitals and private homes. It is not known how many teachers are doing such work nationwide, said officials with major educational organizations.

“We don’t often hear about hospital teachers, but their contributions are enormous,” says Pickett of Sloan-Kettering. “They provide a vital link to the outside world that kids need in such a frightening setting. They keep children on track, and shore up their confidence.”

*

Higgins began training for the job long ago. Born in Galway the eldest of nine children, she helped her parents raise the other kids. She is the only sibling who never married.

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Bright and outgoing, she grew interested in teaching, and friends expected her to work at a parochial school in Ireland. But she surprised them at age 16, when she moved to New York City and joined a Dominican teaching order where her aunt was in charge of finances.

“I knew Brigid had an adventurous spirit,” says her brother, Jim, who lives near Dublin. “But she was also spiritual. That’s still a big part of her personality.”

Higgins spent 20 years as a nun, then grew restless and left the order. Her passion for teaching endured.

She worked in parochial and private schools, and would have stayed in America indefinitely. But Higgins returned to Ireland in 1972 when her mother fell ill. After her mother’s death, she stayed on to care for her dad, who died in 1988. Then she returned to New York.

She began a promising career in the public schools, and was working toward a master’s degree in education when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990.

Her illness caused her to re-think her priorities, Higgins says, and she soon found work as a home instructor for sick children, in a program run by the city. Next came hospital work, and finally a full-time job in 1995 at Sloan-Kettering.

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Then as now, Higgins is a blend of old and new. She recites classic poetry by William Butler Yeats and adores the jangling sounds of U-2. She collects antique Waterford crystal goblets, and has a fondness for high-powered laptops. She’s just as likely to handicap “American Idol” finalists as talk politics in County Kildare.

Her work has not gone unnoticed. She was honored this month by Irish America magazine as one of the 100 most prominent Irish in America.

“I am content with all that life has given me,” she says, wrapping up a day of work. “And I have a dream that, one day, all my students will be reunited with me in heaven. They’ll say: ‘There she is! The lady who gave us too much homework!’”

After work, Higgins sometimes goes out with close friends to pubs or restaurants, movies or plays. Most nights, she rides home alone to a cozy, four-room apartment on Manhattan’s East Side.

She cooks herself a simple meal, like lamb stew or potato soup.

Then, settling in for the night, she often curls up on the sofa and enjoys a glass of scotch.

Higgins keeps a scrapbook of her students, and she’s constantly adding new photos: There’s a smiling picture of Chris Brown, a boy who overcame cancer and is studying to be an oncologist. Turn the page and there’s a shot of Cristina Fannin, a waif-like girl from Nevada who wanted to be a ballerina. She died last year.

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“I try to look on the bright side,” Higgins says. “All of these children are angels. Some have gone on to college. Others have gone to God.”

Some nights, before getting ready for bed, Higgins sits in the dark and listens to old Irish ballads. Music swells in the room, the lyrics fill her with peace and sadness:

“‘Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone”

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